


Into the Dark

by orphan_account



Series: Across the Tintagel Sea [2]
Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Blood and Injury, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set some time after Avalon, Sinbad finally learns how both he and Ja'far died. The latter disturbs him far more than the former.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Dark

“What’s going on over there?”

Ja’far looked up from his book, barely registering the scene across the way. Normally he and Sin stayed at the recreated palace, but every so often they decided to live in a small house in the middle of the recreated residential district. After all, this _was_ Heaven – if they couldn’t relax and pretend to be everyday citizens whenever they liked, what was the point? Sinbad seemed far more aware of their surroundings on this warm evening, watching an event at the fountain on the other side of the road.

“Nothing,” he dismissed, looking back down to the volume in his hands. No matter how often he read, or how long they were there (which was a shaky concept that he didn’t want to deal with in the first place), he never ran out of books to read. Frankly, he’d accepted his death with much greater aplomb than Sin had.

“He’s bleeding,” Sin insisted, voice tight. “We need to help him. I didn’t know you could bleed here. Look there, he’s bleeding more now!”

“He’s fine,” Ja’far insisted right back, turning the page. “He’s obviously retelling the story of his death. He doesn’t seem bothered by the wounds, does he?”

Indeed, the storyteller seemed to be quite happy, while the children around him gasped and applauded at all the right parts. Despite the deep nature of his wounds, no blood seemed to be actually coming out, just staining his clothes in an almost becoming pattern. Sinbad was, if possible, even more flabbergasted by this turn of events.

“You can do that? See how you died, if you aren’t sure? See how other people died?”

“Of course. You just sort of concentrate, and…” He waved a hand around vaguely, then glanced up suspiciously. “I don’t like that tone. That’s your tone when you’re about to do something ridiculous and pig-headed.”

“I don’t have a tone like that.”

“You do, and you’re using it right now.”

Sinbad scowled, standing and walking into their small house. It was a perfect recreation of his childhood home, which Ja’far had accepted without any comment. The former adviser sighed, carefully replacing his bookmark before following his partner.

“Sin, you’re going to drive yourself crazy like this,” he warned, frowning as he watched Sin strip off his outermost layers. “Are you sure you want to know? It was – ”

“What? It was what?” Sinbad stared at him hard. He was so injured at the time of his death that he had no memory of it. The last thing he remembered was being in the middle of raging battle, and then waking on the boat that had carried him to New Sindria, as he liked to call it. Ja’far, on the other hand, had been painfully present for every last second of his lover’s death. But despite the king’s repeated requests, Ja’far never elaborated on what exactly had killed him. Even now, he refused to answer Sinbad’s question, face drawn and even paler than usual. “I need to know, Ja’far. You know I need to.”

The one-time adviser’s response surprised him out of his frustration. “Don’t do this to me.” The whisper cut through the room, ringing in his ears. “If you’re going to insist on this, let me go first. I can’t see it again, Sin, I just can’t.” Ja’far kept his emotions under wraps, but that in itself was a warning sign. If he was angry, he would simply yell. This meant that he was truly miserable, even scared of what was to come. The pale man only ever looked this distant when he was terrified of his own emotions.

Sin agreed to his condition, expression genuinely apologetic. “I’ll go into the other room. Give me a few moments, and then I’ll come out, good as new. Is that okay?” Ja’far gave him a silent nod, averting his eyes and settling himself on the daybed that belonged to Esra, back on Earth. Sin moved closer, pressing a kiss to Ja’far’s forehead. “Thank you. You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it important.” His partner stayed silent, although the lines around his mouth tightened in his displeasure.

Unable to reassure him more, Sin retreated to their bedroom, trying to figure out how exactly such a thing worked. He simply had to focus, didn’t he? And Ja’far mentioned something about moving his hands… Sinbad tried running a hand over his arm, but nothing happened. He tried his hands, his face, his legs; none seemed inclined to give him the results he needed. With a deep breath he closed his eyes, trying to remember where he’d been hurt. He could picture a gash in his left shoulder, one that had sliced through muscle and rendered the arm useless. He pressed a hand to that shoulder, and to his surprise he thought he felt the warm stickiness of blood.

Bolstered by this apparent improvement in technique, he continued. Had he gotten a leg wound? Yes, definitely. He started to move his hand to touch the spot, but stopped when he realized he could already feel it there. Odd, because it wasn’t bleeding, simply an open wound, as if someone had drained all his blood before cutting him. Spots began to open all over his body now, as though it had figured out what he wanted. He could feel marks on his face, a particularly deep one on his chest, and hundreds of small cuts on his extremities. His leg twisted at an odd angle, but again, he felt no pain; his wrist quickly followed suit. By the time it stopped adding new injuries, there was almost no skin unmarred.

Fascinated, he examined himself in the mirror by the door. He was nearly unrecognizable, so extensive and ghastly were his injuries. There was a loud noise on the other side of the curtain that separated the rooms, and his thoughts immediately flashed to Ja’far. No wonder the other man had looked so horrified. If he’d had to see Ja’far bloodied like this… well, whoever did it would have their entire country razed, if he was entirely honest with himself.

Quickly, he waved his hands again, and the cuts began to reseal. His leg and wrist righted themselves, what little bloodstains there were disappearing as though nothing untoward had ever happened. His wrap went back around his shoulders, tied firmly in place before he exited the room again.

Ja’far was busy fixing dinner. The loud noise from earlier had apparently been him slamming a pot down with more force than usual, which was now hanging above the fire in the middle of the room. He gestured to it briefly before continuing his current task, which appeared to be making some sort of biscuit. “Stew,” he said, sounding as if he wanted nothing more than to never speak for the rest of his life. “With fish and papaya.”

“Ja’far, I’m sorry –”

“Do you see now why I didn’t want you to do it?” He looked up, eyes wide. “Do you see why it’s a dangerous thing for us to, to be able to do that? It’s irresponsible, reckless…”

“We’re already dead. The worst that can happen is we wake up back in our own beds here,” Sin reminded him gently, walking over slowly. This was one of the few times where he wasn’t sure if coming close to Ja’far would help or hurt his cause. With the fact that Ja’far turned a wicked looking knife his way, he was going to go with hurt, and backed off again.

“Trust you to only think of the physical,” Ja’far murmured, sighing and putting down his knife again. “To relive your death? That’s terrible. No one should have to see you that way. And as for me?” He stopped, looking pensive, and turned back to his cooking. “Grab me those plantains, will you?”

Sin did as he requested, brow furrowed. “As for you? You obviously didn’t die the same way I did. What did you mean, as for you?”

“Butter, please,” Ja’far added mildly, gesturing to a spot of counter out of his reach. Again Sinbad fetched the requested item, and again he tried to coax the information out of him.

“You’re not good at redirection,” Sin informed him, crossing his arms and watching as Ja’far cut the fruit into chunks. “I want to know how you died, Ja’far.”

“Get some oil, I need to fry these,” the younger man continued stubbornly, nothing on his face betraying his opinion about his own death. There was none of the fear or agitation he’d had when Sinbad’s death was mentioned, so clearly he wasn’t afraid of it. No, if Sin had to guess any emotion, it would be shame. But that made no sense, why would Ja’far be ashamed of how he died? Did someone get the better of him? Impossible.

This time, he didn’t do as Ja’far asked, instead moving forward to take his arm. “Ja’far, you’re scaring me. Talk to me, please. Don’t ignore me.”

Ja’far hesitated at that, his mask broken at last. He looked away, taking a slow breath in. “You’ll look at me differently,” he muttered, staring at the opposite wall as if he hoped it would fall down and he could make an escape.

“Look at you differently? You know I’ll love you no matter what. What difference does it make how you died? We’re both dead now, it’s hardly like I can judge.”

“Of course you can judge!” There was the old anger, flaring up again. Sinbad felt more on solid ground with this Ja’far. “Anyone can judge, dead or not, and it’s very easy to judge what I did!”

“What _you_ did?”

Ja’far stilled. The pieces began flying together in Sinbad’s mind, all creating one horrifying picture. “Ja’far, you didn’t.”

The younger man stared past his lover, expression grimly determined.

“Ja’far, you _couldn_ ’ _t_!”

The man continued to say nothing, his silence damning. He moved his hand over his heart, and a large red stain blossomed against his white shirt. Sinbad sucked in a shocked breath, face falling in his anguish.

“Why? Why would you?”

“Because I had watched you die, doing nothing. I stood helplessly by as the life seeped out of you, hands stained with your blood. I never could wash the feeling off.” His voice was toneless, the sound of someone telling a story that had happened to someone else a long time ago. “I took care of Sindria for a few more years. I knew you’d want me to keep stability. Alibaba took over as king, when he was older, and Aladdin was his magi. I thought you would approve.” Sin nodded, waiting for the rest of the explanation.

“I was miserable,” Ja’far continued, having now shifted his gaze to the ceiling. “My bed was too empty. There was no one to confide in the way I did with you. Alibaba gained his own advisers, and my role became lessened as I assigned things to the new guard. On the fifth…” He paused, gathering himself together. There was only the slightest hint of a waver to his voice. “On the fifth anniversary of your death, it became too much to bear. While they held a celebration in honor of the first king of Sindria, I snuck off to my room. I left a detailed letter behind. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”

Ja’far turned back to his cooking, expression empty. He looked more like the child he’d been when he first met Sinbad than he’d ever done in the intervening years, locking himself away to avoid dealing with emotions. It felt to Sinbad like he was dying a second death, imagining him with this distant expression for the five years between his death on the battlefield and Ja’far’s end at his own hand.

“I never knew,” he whispered, mortified.

“Of course you didn’t,” Ja’far snapped, bringing his knife down hard against the wood cutting board. It buried deep, becoming lodged, and he began working it free again. “I didn’t want you to know. It was a terrible idea and I never should have done it, because of course you found out and of course you won’t want me here anymore.”

“You really think I’m mad because you killed yourself? Ja’far!” Sin darted close, stealing the knife and sliding it across the counter before forcing the smaller man to face him. There was a flash of defiance in those narrow grey eyes before his expression went carefully blank again. “I’m angry with myself for leaving you in such a state. It isn’t a terrible idea because I _found out_ , it was a terrible idea because you had a whole life to live and instead you cut it short because of me. I wanted you to grow old, Ja’far. Maybe find someone else and settle down, and then the three of us could live together here. I don’t know! But not this, never this.”

“Do you remember what I told you, Sin?” Ja’far’s tone had turned quietly wistful, now, regret that he would only allow Sinbad to see tinging his words. “I would follow you until the end. And so I did. I followed your instructions, ensured your country was on the right path and could function without me, and then I followed you. Down to the letter.”

Sinbad could taste phantom bile on his tongue. This was not the way heaven was supposed to work. Or was this even heaven? Everything seemed perfect, but the people were all still people, simply dead people. Their souls were the same, and nothing could perfect a human soul. He almost wished he had the ability to throw up here. The burning in his throat was agony.

“I’d never send you away,” he murmured, addressing what seemed to be Ja’far’s greatest fear. “There’s nothing you could have done, in life or death, to make me send you away once I had you again.”

It was miniscule, the way Ja’far’s shoulders relaxed, but easy to see for someone who knew him as well as Sinbad did. “Thank you, Sin,” came the quiet reply, and the pale man turned away again, eyes still cast down. “Let’s drop it now. Please.”

Sinbad nodded, turning to get the oil Ja’far had requested, what seemed like decades ago. Perhaps it was for the best, not talking about how they’d died. About how Ja’far had died. But the former king knew that for the rest of his afterlife, he’d have nightmares about that stain of red covering his lover’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a deleted part of Avalon, where as Ja'far's boat approaches, he was supposed to have the telltale blossom of blood over his heart, which would disappear as he stepped onto the island. There were too many logistical errors - if Ja'far kept the marks of his injury until he got onto the island, Sin would have to keep his, and there was no way he was wandering around on a boat with a broken leg, even if it didn't hurt him. It'd just be a hassle to deal with. So it stayed as a post on my tumblr, until one night were I decided I needed a little more angst in my life.
> 
> Speaking of, you can find me on tumblr at GamerMattJeevas. Yell at me about your emotions!
> 
> Also, at one point I reference Ja'far sitting on "Esra's" daybed. In the interest of full disclosure, Esra and Badr live in the palace as well when Sin and Ja’far are in residence, and down the street from them when they are not. Neither mind the occasional moves, and Esra was flattered by the fact that Sin and Ja’far made their home in a recreation of Sin’s parents’ place. This was going to be a footnote in the text of the story itself, but I didn't want people to skip down to it and be spoiled about the ending.


End file.
